Livy: Periochae 76-80

Titus Livius
or Livy (59 BCE -
17 CE): Roman historian, author of the authorized version of the
history
of the Roman republic. Many of the 142 books of the History
of
Rome from its beginning are now lost; however, we do have an
excerpt,
the Periochae.

[89
BCE] Deputy Aulus Gabinius had successfully waged war
against the
Lucanians and had captured many towns, when he was killed during the
siege
of a camp. Commander
Sulpicius slaughtered all Marrucinians and accepted the surrender of
the
entire region. Proconsul
Gnaeus Pompeius accepted the surrender of the Vestinians and
Paelignians.The
Marsians, broken in several battles by the deputies Lucius Cinna and
Caecilius
Pius, started to beg for peace. Gnaeus
Pompeius captured Asculum. After
the Italians had been defeated again by deputy Aemilius Mamercus, the
leader
of the Marsians and ringleader of the affair, Poppaedius Silo, fell in
battle.

When tribune
of the plebs
Publius Sulpicius, on the instigation of Carius Marius, had proposed
dangerous
laws (that the exiles would be recalled, new citizens and freedmen
would
be divided in voting districts, and Marius would be appointed leader
against
Mithridates, king of Pontus), and had used violence against the
opposing
consuls Quintus Pompeius and Lucius Sulla, killing Quintus Pompeius
(the
son of consul Quintus Pompeius and son-in-law of Sulla), Lucius Sulla
entered
the city with an army, fought a battle against the factions of
Sulpicius
and Marius in the city itself, and expelled them. Twelve
members of this faction -among others father and son Marius- were
proclaimed
enemies by the Senate.

When Publius
Sulpicius
was hiding in a villa, he was hunted down and killed on information
given
by his own slave. Because
he had shown the way, the slave received the promised freedom, but was
thrown from the [Tarpeian] rock because of his criminal betrayal of his
master.

The younger
Gaius
Marius crossed to Africa. The
elder Gaius Marius hid himself in the marches near Minturnae, but was
dragged
out by the citizens. When a slave from Gaul was sent out to kill him,
he
withdrew because he feared the greatness of this man, and Marius was
put
on one of the town's ships and sent to Africa.

Mithridates
occupied
Asia, cast into chains proconsul Quintus Oppius, did the same to his
deputy
Aquilius, and on Mithridates' command all Roman citizens in Asia were
killed
in one single day.He
attacked the city of Rhodes, which alone had remained faithful to the
Roman
people, but was defeated in several naval battles, and retired.

Archelaus,
the
deputy of the king, went to Greece with an army and occupied Athens.

It [book 78]
also
contains an account of the disorders in the cities and on the islands,
as some wanted to side with Mithridates, and others with the Roman
people.

[87]
When
consul Lucius Cornelius Cinna was carrying dangerous laws by violence
and
arms, he along with six tribunes of the plebs was expelled from the
city
by his colleague Gnaeus Octavius and deprived of his office, but with
bribes,
he brought the army of Appius Claudius in his power and carried the war
into the city, recalling Gaius Marius and other exiles from
Africa. (In
this war, two brothers, one from the army of Pompeius and one from
Cinna's,
unknowingly engaged, and when the winner was stripping the man he had
killed,
he cried heavily when he recognized his brother and built a pyre, on
which
he stabbed himself, and was consumed by the same fire.)

And although
[the
civil war] could have been suppressed at the very beginning, by the
treason
of Gnaeus Pompeius (who supported both sides and did not bring help to
the
optimates till their position had become
desparate) and by the
slowness of the consul, the position of Cinna and Marius was
strengthened,
so that they were able to besiege the city with four armies, two of
which
were given to Quintus Sertorius and Carbo.

Citizenship
was
given to the Italian nations by the Senate. The
Samnites, the only ones to take up arms again, sided with Cinna and
Marius. They
defeated deputy Plautius and his army.

Cinna and
Marius,
together with Carbo and Sertorius, attacked the Janiculum, but were
routed
by consul Octavius and retreated. Marius
captured the colonies at Antium and Aricia and Lanuvium.

When, because
of
the slowness and perfidy of both their leaders and their soldiers (who
were bribed and did not want to fight or moved to other regions), the optimates
had lost all hope of holding out, Cinna and Marius were received in the
city, which they treated with murder and rape as if it were conquered.
Consul Gnaeus Octavius was killed and all noble members of the opposite
party butchered, like Marcus Antonius (a man of great eloquence), and Gaius
and Lucius
Caesar, whose heads were placed on the speaker's
platform. The
younger Crassus was killed by the knights
of Fimbria, and the elder Crassus, wishing to avoid a fate unworthy of
his dignity, stabbed himself with his sword.

And without
even
the appearance of election, they [Cinna and Marius] appointed
themselves
consuls for the next year.

[86]
On
the very day of the beginning of his magistracy, Marius ordered that
the
senator Sextus Licinius was to be thrown from he [Tarpeian] rock. After
many crimes, Marius died on the Ides of January. When we take
everything
into account, he had been a man about whom it was not easy to say
whether
he was more excellent in times of war than he was dangerous in times of
peace. It
can therefore be said
that as much as he saved the state as a soldier, so much he damaged it
as a citizen - first by his tricks, later by his revolutionary actions.